Sniffer dogs and police officers join Saturday racegoers at Goodwood

The first Goodwood Saturday meeting since the grisly brawl that marred the track's last weekend fixture appeared to go off in a mood much more in keeping with one of the sport's most popular venues.

Although Goodwood also raced on Thursday and Friday, its fourth meeting of the year provided a more meaningful test of the beefed up security arrangements put in place since a fight that involved 50 people and appeared all over social media.

Sniffer dogs and five police officers were in attendance alongside the racecourse's usual security staff on an afternoon billed as a food and racing festival.

Goodwood paid to have police officers attend Saturday's meetingCredit: Mark Cranham (racingpost.com/photos)

General manager Alex Eade said: "The Thursday and Friday are obviously different sort of days but today's gone really well. We've paid to have five police personnel here and they've been very visible, as have our in-house security staff, which I think is the key. Going back to my army days, I'd say we have moved from covert prevention to overt reassurance."

Among the roughly 10,000 racegoers was local businesswoman Kristy Adams, who was on a racecourse for the first time.

"I did hear about the fighting here on the news but it didn't put me off coming," she said. "There's extra security in place and as we came in we saw five security people and sniffer dogs. If there was an emergency today it would be stopped.

"This has been my first time at the races and I'm really enjoying it. The atmosphere is so lovely and it's great to be able to get close up to the horses."

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